Month: June 2017

EFC Heritage Society member Rob Sawyer is appealing for supporters’ memories of Everton players from a golden era.
Rob, who wrote the excellent biography of Harry Catterick, says: “My dad and I watched the Blues sweep all before them in the 1980s but his greatest praise was reserved for the championship-winning team of 1938/39. This has inspired me to chronicle the players’ stories particularly that of Tommy ‘T.G.’ Jones, dubbed ‘The Prince of Centre- Halves’.”
Those lucky enough to see it, claim that this team best-fulfilled the School of Science billing bestowed upon the Club by former Derby County striker, Steve Bloomer. Much like in 1984, something clicked for a team that had been in a state of transition during the previous season. And, just like Kendall’s champions, the 1938/39 team was a finely-tuned mix of youth and experience, skill and steel.
Agile goalkeeper Ted Sagar was nicknamed ‘The Boss’ for the way he dominated his box. Uncompromising full-backs Billy Cook and Norman...

Burnley's game at Goodison Park is the only top-flight fixture this weekend that features two founder
members of the Football League.
Burnley began life playing under the rules of Rugby School but switched to the FA code following an invitation from the local cricket club to join them at their established home of Turf Moor.
The Burnley footballers first played here in 1883, which means only Preston North End have occupied their home ground for a longer length of time in English football.
Burnley were soon given a shock introduction into the realities of the association game when, in October 1883, they were beaten 9-1 by a neighbouring Padiham side that included several Scottish imports. The Turf Moor outfit quickly did the same, surpassed their neighbours and, in September 1888, became a founder member of the Football League.
They first met Everton on alternative weekends in November 1888. The first was on a section of Turf Moor that had been fenced off from the cricket...

Run through the list of Everton’s record scorers against almost every club we’ve ever faced and one name predictably dominates.
William Ralph Dean.
Everton’s top scorer against Arsenal? Dixie with 12 goals.
Liverpool? Dixie with 19. Chelsea? Dixie again with 10. But not today’s visitors Hull City.
The man who tormented the Tigers even more than the celebrated Dixie throughout his career was another Everton striker, a man who doesn’t feature as frequently whenever lists of Everton’s great forwards are mentioned but whose goals return was impressive.
John Willie Parker was described as a “stylish inside- forward” who played much of his football for Everton during the brief spell we spent outside the top flight between 1951 and 1954.
He scored 89 goals in his 176 Everton appearances, many of them in that spell – and in the promotion campaign of 1953/54 top-scored with 31 goals in 38 starts.
He scored once against Hull that season, but it was in Everton’s first campaign of Second Division football...

Cartoon “Referees and the Heat Wave. Suggested Outfit”;
headline from the Liverpool Daily Post & Mercury
– “Football Hot O! Players Collapse”; a cartoon from the Football
Echo of Saturday
8 September, reflecting on the heatwave. Caption reads: ‘Overheard last
Saturday: “Tommy, come and stand in the shade; it’s cooler.”
The start of September 1906 saw England sweltering in a heatwave
– the most intense temperatures recorded in the 20th century.
It was weather for sunbathing, not sport, as the temperatures topped 32 degrees for four successive days throughout most of the country.
No surprise, then, that the Liverpool Daily Post & Mercury’s headline for Monday 3 September read: Football Hot O! A Warm Kick- Off And Enormous Crowds. Players Collapse. While the editorial began: “The Glorious First, which duly celebrates the commencement of two distinct classes of sport – football and partridge shooting – will long be remembered
for its overpowering heat.”
Maybe the heat helped explain the events at Goodison Park on the Monday evening of 3...